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Tim Lloyd | Anglesey 10K & Half Marathon | Always Aim High Events
67 Plays3 years ago
In episode #56 I am joined by Tim Lloyd from Always Aim High events.
We talk about their upcoming events The Anglesey 10K & Half Marathon as well as some discussion about the nuts and bolts of organising a road race.
Our previous episode with Tim was in September 2021 which you can listen to here
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to episode 56 of the UK sports podcast. I'm Joe Williams. And in this episode, I speak with Tim Lloyd. Tim is the managing director and co-founder of North Wales based events company always aim high events. We have spoke with Tim previously back in September.
Engagement and Feedback Request
00:00:19
Speaker
In this episode specifically, we speak about the upcoming Angle C 10K and half marathon, and we also go into some of the nuts and bolts of organizing the road race, which is really interesting. Hope you enjoy this one. As usual, if you'd like to give us any feedback, please get in touch on info at ukrunchat.co.uk or via any of our social media channels. If you do get a moment to leave us a review on whichever platform it is that you listen to us on, please do that, it really helps.
00:00:48
Speaker
In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your day and see you on the next episode.
Tim's Skiing Background and Achievements
00:00:53
Speaker
Welcome Tim. How are you? I'm very well. Thanks Joe. How are you? Nice to be with you again. Yeah, cheers. Yeah, I'm very good. Thank you. Yeah, good to chat. We last spoke back in September for regular listeners of the podcast and I did remember that you were a keen skier, weren't you? I was indeed. Yeah. Yeah. I've been enjoying the winter. In fact, the highlight of the year for me so far was
00:01:17
Speaker
was Dave Ridings win at Kitspun a few weeks ago. So I was an Alpine skier. And in fact, that was part of the Olympic team back in 1992. Yeah. Which seems like an awful long time ago now.
00:01:27
Speaker
But Dave Ridings win in Kitzpool. He won a World Cup slalom a couple of weeks ago. And that's the first time that a Brit has ever won a World Cup ski race event. So it is a historic event for those of us in the skiing world. Yes. Fantastic to see it come from a local guy who learned to ski on a dry ski. So like most of us did back in the day. So it's brilliant. Really, really good news.
00:01:55
Speaker
So best of luck today, he's got the Olympic style on next week. Yes. Yeah, it's been brilliant. I've really enjoyed it. I'm making sure that I'm watching all the highlights anyway. I've enjoyed it over the weekend. What was the Nordic one I was watching the weekend? I can't remember all the names of everything, but the snowboarding and the tricks and the age of some of the people taking part is incredible.
00:02:25
Speaker
the youngsters, 15 and 16 years old. Yeah, incredible, incredible. Yeah, good on them, good on them. Yeah, good on them.
Anglesey Event Overview and Post-COVID Excitement
00:02:34
Speaker
So we're here to chat about your Anglesey event coming up on the 6th of March.
00:02:41
Speaker
Yeah, so we're back to what looks like a fairly regular year, you know, post COVID, which is fantastic. So the Anglesey Half Marathon 10K, which is always our first event of the year. Traditionally, it's always been on the first weekend in March. We did run it in September last year because it had to be deferred from early on in the year. But now we're back to the
00:03:06
Speaker
it's usual place in the calendar and we're really excited to be back. It does feel really different since we last spoke in September doesn't it? We're in a different space now.
00:03:18
Speaker
Yeah, oh, definitely. I mean, you know, it's I think confidence is growing. We're not quite there yet, are we? You know, there's still we still got a way to go. But yeah, certainly, you know, we've we've done such a good job with the vaccinations and whatnot. And yeah, in certain people's confidence seems to be growing.
Post-COVID Challenges in Event Organizing
00:03:36
Speaker
And and, you know, we I think across the whole of the event sector, you know, we sit on a number of groups now.
00:03:41
Speaker
with other event organizers and everybody's excited and it's been such a huge relief that we can get to a point where we're able to put events on in the way that we did a couple of years back. Yeah, definitely, definitely. Confidence, that's the thing. It's definitely that from all different angles for events.
00:04:01
Speaker
Well, for everybody, but for event organizers as well, it was confidence of community groups to put their hands up to volunteer. Some events helped out and not had enough volunteers. Confidence of participants wanting to be in that environment. Yeah, there was a... Yeah, I mean, the impact is huge, you know, and a great deal of it. You know, it wouldn't, unless you're actually involved in event organizing, you wouldn't be aware of some of the impacts that have affected us.
00:04:30
Speaker
but we are certainly getting there. I mean, there have been some, there continue to be some difficult challenges. I mean, the big, probably the biggest thing that we've seen, again, across the board in event organizing is just that the costs to deliver events has increased dramatically. It's frightening, actually. And we know, we're all the same boat, not just event organized, but across the board, prices are going up, aren't they? Fuel prices and all the rest of it. And it's hitting us all hard.
00:05:00
Speaker
Yeah, we've certainly got some challenges ahead over the next year or two to try and deal with all of that.
History and Attractions of Anglesey Event
00:05:08
Speaker
Okay, so Anglesey then, this has been going for 11 years I believe, is that right?
00:05:13
Speaker
Yes, that's right. So our first event was in 2012. Yeah. And back then it was it was we didn't call it the Anglesey half marathon. Initially, we put on a half marathon race and we called it the island race. And I mean, going back before that, so just just a little bit of background, there was an Anglesey marathon for quite a few years. OK.
00:05:34
Speaker
It was a locally organised club race, but it never achieved particularly good participant numbers. So that race came to an end and we put on our first race locally. I mean, I've been organised in fell races probably for
00:05:52
Speaker
since the early 90s or before that, my father was the race organizer back in the 70s. So I've been involved in race organizing and always my first event in 2011, but then we thought, well,
00:06:08
Speaker
let's look at trying to reinvigorate the old Anglesey marathon and we did a little bit of research and discovered that a half marathon would actually be a better option, certainly a safer option for us as a race organizer back then, and this is back in 2011. So we decided to go for a half marathon in 2012.
00:06:31
Speaker
and we put it called it the island race and we organised it very much along the same lines as we had been doing some triathlon races which was to showcase the local area.
00:06:46
Speaker
Which is why we, you know, our request back then was, we went to Angsty Council and we said, look, we'd love to have a race on Anglesey, which showcases some of your beautiful locations. And we'd looked at route distances and whatnot. And we knew that we could do a half marathon, which starting on the Menai Suspension Bridge, which is such an iconic location.
00:07:10
Speaker
but also taking in the route, you know, we wanted to take in Bumaris Castle, which is one of the, you know, the famous Welsh castles, you know, these are nearly a thousand years old as well now. So, so that's what we that's what we proposed. And Anxley Council, you know, we worked through their tourism sort of section and they were really keen to work with us. Yeah.
00:07:34
Speaker
So we did it first in 2012 and it's grown since then. We now have a 10k as well as the half marathon race. The same route starting on the bridge, it actually starts on the mainland and runs over the bridge and onto the island and then down.
00:07:51
Speaker
It's a beautiful tarmac road. It's a closed road down into the town of Bmaris, which those of you who have visited North Wales have probably been to Bmaris. It's a beautiful little town. And then there's a loop that goes out of the back end of Bmaris and comes back past the castle.
00:08:09
Speaker
along the waterfront past the lifeboat station through the town and back finishing in the center of Menai Bridge Town. So it's a really lovely route actually and you know we've never changed it because it is so popular and it does take in some beautiful
00:08:25
Speaker
uh those iconic locations but also the views as you run down the road from from mena bridge tour down towards bmaris yes views across the menais straights back towards snodonia at the stunning we've had some really nice we've been looking at so we got some really nice weather days for the race we have one year when it was um the mountains were all covered in snow in fact we had one year where we we
00:08:46
Speaker
It was a challenge. It was only about three or four years ago. It was really difficult to put the event on because we had so much snow, but we... Yeah, I remember that month. Yeah, it must have been... That was probably 2018. It was one of the storms that came in. I think it was Storm Emma, if I remember right. I can't remember that because my wife's name is Emma. But we managed to get the race delivered. It was a beautiful sunny day, but it was snowy and it was gorgeous.
00:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, so no, it's been good. When I think of North Wales, you know, I'm not far from you in Shropshire here in Shrewsbury, but when I think of North Wales, I think of mountains and lots of them. So is this a bumpy route or not?
00:09:30
Speaker
Is it a bumpy route? It's not flat, but it's not hilly either. The fastest time that we've got for half marathon is a 107. That was Andy Jones back in 2014. So it's not slow, but it's probably not a PB.
00:09:50
Speaker
Of course, if I'm being perfectly honest, the 10K is flatter because what happens is the race route, there's a very gentle climb out of Manai Bridge and then it drops down into Bumaris. And of course, that means that on the way back, you've got to then climb out of Bumaris. It's not steep, but it's a gentle climb up, then drops back down into Manai Bridge.
00:10:13
Speaker
The 10K actually is flatter because it avoids that hill that drops down and to be Morrison back again. So the women's record time actually just out of interest is 116. That was Anna Bracegirdle back in, that was in 2021. Yeah, they're good times, they're still good times. I mean, who wants pancake flat anyway?
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's not it's not a race you come for for a PB, I'd say, but it's a race that you come because you love running and you enjoy running in beautiful places and the views and the whole atmosphere and experiences is a really good one. So yes, I mean, it's stunning up there as well. I'm quite biased. I've spent a lot of my holiday time in my youth and even now I love coming over to that part of the world.
00:11:04
Speaker
It certainly appeals. You mentioned before about participant numbers, from the marathon and a half marathon being a better option. Do you see that a lot in your events? Yeah, I'd say definitely. We gave it some thought and we put in the event where it is in the beginning of May was deliberate because of the marathon season.
00:11:31
Speaker
especially at London Marathon and Manchester and some of the other big races, where a half a few weeks out from doing a full marathon is always a good option. So that's why we initially put the race on the weekend that it's always stayed there ever since.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah we've tried with marathons and it's quite difficult. We've had much more success with halves. I think the biggest field we've had at the Anglesey half is about two and a half thousand runners. Yeah very good.
00:12:06
Speaker
which is pretty good. This year we're targeting 1500 this year because just because of Covid and we're still in this recovery phase from Covid and we actually put the event on in September last year. We don't anticipate such a big field this year but we think we're well on target to hit 1500 in fact. We're probably going to exceed that by a little bit which is good.
00:12:33
Speaker
But it's really popular. And with it being Anglesey or Bangor, the town of Bangor, which is essentially where the race starts, you're only pretty much just at around about an hour, less than an hour from Chester, probably an hour and 15 from Liverpool and Manchester. It's not far for people to drive to. You can drive in the morning, you can drive, run and then head home, or you can come and make a weekend of it if people prefer to do that.
00:13:00
Speaker
you know it's very close to that sort of northwest and like you say where you are down in Shropshire and even down into the midlands looking at Birmingham and that is only a couple of hours away so yeah it's very easy to get to really to get to somewhere different or somewhere you know where you're going to experience something different because the other things that's quite interesting and that we get we get told
Participant Demographics and Local Economy Support
00:13:20
Speaker
is that
00:13:21
Speaker
coming into Wales from England does feel slightly different. Obviously there's the whole language issue, but just the road signs and even some of the architecture and whatnot, it feels somewhere different. So it's quite nice for people to travel a short distance, but to feel that they're
00:13:42
Speaker
that, you know, they're away from potentially a weekend. But he said, just, you know, and if you go a little bit further, the other way, you've got all the angles here to explore and, you know, and Port Maddock and all those kinds of areas, Port Mary, and they're all
00:13:58
Speaker
It's a stone throw. You're talking about half an hour from Menai Bridge, from where the race starts. Half an hour is rated on a map and you've got all the snow down you've got all the beaches of Anglesey, you've got
00:14:14
Speaker
you know, Conway County is absolutely gorgeous and some of the beaches, you know, the small towns and the castles and all of the history. Yeah. You know, I've been in fact, I was reading up some of the history, you know, from the angsty half race and
00:14:29
Speaker
you know the suspension bridge itself you know that where we start the race so the race starts on the bridge and you run across the bridge so so we close the road yeah and thanks to the trunk roads agency and angsty council for working with us on that but the bridge that men I bridge it was the world's first major suspension bridge you know it's it's really really iconic yeah
00:14:50
Speaker
And it was designed by Thomas Telford. It was built back in, you know, the early 1800s. Yeah. And it was a world's first. Yeah. So, I mean, that in itself is pretty impressive, isn't it? But then they say, like, running down past Bumaris, the castle, you know, they were built back in the 1200s, weren't they? The Welsh castles by Edward I. And, you know, if you're into history or you're just into sort of visiting interesting places, then North Wales has got so much to offer.
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's incredible. And of course, there's been a boom locally the last few years in North Wales becoming like an adventure.
00:15:31
Speaker
Ziplines and the surf centers and there's rides on the straights. You can hire ribs and go do these. It's really exciting. And the caves as well, I've seen jotting through the caves. It's underground stuff. Honestly, it is a great place for us to live and it's a great place to visit.
00:15:52
Speaker
So bear that in mind. Just another point before I say this, it is a great midpoint race for the April marathon. Definitely the time in superb, isn't it, in terms of early March? Yeah. But just on all those points you're talking about, you know, I suppose tourism and people visiting and
00:16:09
Speaker
Do you know where your people come from then? You come to these events and all your events, I suppose, because you're in such a lovely part of the world. Do you get a lot of locals or do you tend to see a lot of people travelling in and staying? Yeah, we do. We get both, to be honest. Obviously, we're quite popular with local athletes.
00:16:37
Speaker
But across the board, we attract about 70% of our competitors come from outside Wales. We actually work quite a lot with Visit Wales, so we have to do a lot of post-event economic impact assessments and that kind of thing. And that all means having to ask people where they come from, how far they travel, how many nights you stay, and blah, blah, blah, and the rest of it. So yeah, we do attract a lot of people from outside of Wales.
00:17:07
Speaker
full year, which is 2019. We attracted people from about 45 countries around the world, believe it or not. This is across our event portfolio and in our event.
00:17:18
Speaker
are all in Wales pretty much. So it's not only sort of UK wide, but worldwide. The whole purpose of what we do actually, initially when we set always in high up, it was to showcase North Wales, Kenny and myself, it was two of us who set the business up.
00:17:40
Speaker
And we're both local people and we both absolutely love the outdoors and particularly North Wales. And so that's why we set this whole thing up was to try and sort of sell the area, showcase the area and attract people in in order to support the local communities and the local economy.
00:17:59
Speaker
And the model has been, it's been a success, you know, we've been, we've been sort of show, we've been highlighted, you know, at Welsh government level, certainly by, by our local AMS as, you know, as a, as a, you know, an example of how a local business can be run successfully in supporting local community projects.
00:18:21
Speaker
and the local economy. So now it's good and we continue to work that way. We try to support, as far as possible, we buy things locally, we support other local businesses, our support services are all bought in locally, our staff are hired in locally. All of that stuff is really important to us. And that's why you will see things which are different and sometimes people like, for example, people who run the Anxie half this year,
00:18:48
Speaker
They will, they will be, we award, we've made the decision, you know, certainly post COVID, we've reviewed everything that we've done. People will be awarded, you know, a slate medal as opposed to, you know, which is sourced and manufactured locally and it's manufactured from a recycled product.
Sustainability Focus and Eco-friendly Practices
00:19:07
Speaker
So sustainability is really important for us. We think we're leading the way actually as in the event world.
00:19:13
Speaker
on the whole environmental front. But I mean, that's a different story again. But the reason we give slate medals is because we are buying them from another local business. It's a recycle that we use a waste product to make the medals, which means that we're recycling the product. And it's not a product which will be put in somebody's drawer and never seen again, but it's designed like a slate coaster. So you put it on your worktop, you can take it to your workplace.
00:19:42
Speaker
You know, you put your cup on it, it looks nice and it serves a purpose. Yeah, it's a corner memento, that is, and it's a little bit different, isn't it? And like you say, it's a bloke also, it means something to the race, doesn't it?
00:19:54
Speaker
Exactly. And just to dispel it, you know, any of the rooms out there, you know, the slight mementos, they're no cheaper for us to buy. So, you know, it's not certainly not a cost saving exercise, but it's an, it's a responsible exercise. And, um, we will, we know that we'll get some criticism from some of the runners because they'll say they prefer a medal that they can hang up and, you know, and, um, and, and show off. But, you know, what we know is those medals that they hang up in their home, they put that, you know, they're manufactured in China that they're shipped.
00:20:24
Speaker
halfway around the world to, you know, to the race organizer. And it's not the way that, you know, that we think we should be doing as we move forward. Yeah, there was a lot of chat about this actually, Tim. We see this spoken about online and you see people who have moved to wooden medals and obviously there's the buckles in there and the ultras and stuff. But I actually, I've got a plate from the pottery's half marathon.
00:20:53
Speaker
And I had my toast on it the other evening, and I thought, I've had this since 2015, and it gets used every single day. It's probably the best memento I've ever had. I mean, I remember, you probably remember yourself, Joe, like years back. I've done lots of the road running over the years. We used to get mugs, didn't we? And sometimes I'm thinking about it again now for 2023, because for this year, we've stuck with a commitment that we made to people, because we're still in this sort of,
00:21:23
Speaker
we're rolling events over from covid so we've still got to deliver the promises that we made back then and so this year we've stuck with with t-shirts as a you know as a giveaway um at the events um but but next year i think you know a t-shirt again we've asked so many people who've got
00:21:39
Speaker
hundreds of race t-shirts that just never see the light of day. Yeah. And so I'm thinking, you know, again, a mug, a locally sourced mug is something I remember. I used to have a cupboard full of them years ago, you know, can I have 10K and yeah.
00:21:53
Speaker
whatever else, you know, all these, these races and I thought, you know, again, it's a useful bit of kit because you're going to use it, aren't you? And it's quite nice and it's, and it reminds you of your, you know, your days. I don't know. It's, um, yeah, this is all food for thought that we think, you know, as we, as we move forward and try to be more responsible, what's the right, what is the right thing to do? The teachers, you know, they all, they're all manufactured, you know, somewhere on the other side of the world, aren't they? And,
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, and there's some interesting stats around that, about the amount of, I think it was the amount of water I saw, the stat that was used as part of the making process. So it is the right time for all of our organizers to be thinking about these things, definitely. One thing we are doing is that we introduced last year, we worked with High Five as a nutrition partner. And High Five have made a commitment to recycle energy gel wrappers, which is
00:22:46
Speaker
which is a first. And it's really difficult because of the way that energy gel wrappers are manufactured. It's like a multi-layer manufacturing process. So it is relevant for this podcast because anybody who's running the agency half, we would ask you, we'll give you energy gels for free at the event, at the feed stations.
00:23:12
Speaker
But if you are using gels, please could you put the wrappers into the dedicated energy gel recycling bins? Because we then send them off to TerraCycle, which is the recycling firm, and we pay them. So there's a cost to us as the event organizer. But they're paid then to recycle those energy gel wrappers as well, because otherwise they just go into landfill. It's very difficult to recycle that product.
00:23:37
Speaker
So Fair Play to High Five, they've taken the initiative on this and set up this partnership with TerraCycle and we've committed to support it, so let's say we're paying for it. But again, it's something which is new and I'm sure it'll develop and probably in a year or two, gel wrappers will
00:23:54
Speaker
will change and be easier to recycle. But for now, we've made that commitment, so we'd ask all the runners who attend on the day, please, do use those gel recycling bins if you can. Yeah. Yeah, that's very good. It's great chatting to them because you get all sorts of ideas for your event. I'm sat here thinking like Shrewsbury biscuits and stuff now for our... Yeah, no, it is... What sort of stuff have we got?
00:24:20
Speaker
It's really hard because the thing is, the other thing about food on the events is because of Covid, we would have lots of food on the finish line and people could just help themselves whatever they wanted. But we can't do that now because you can't have people just dipping their hands into like a bucket of sweets or a bucket of crisps or whatever it might be.
00:24:37
Speaker
So, so, you know, the downside is, you know, we have to give somebody a sealed package. If it's actually at the angle of course, it's a packet of crisps. Everybody gets a packet of Jones crisp because Jones is our headline sponsor for the event.
00:24:56
Speaker
Um, which is quite handy because, you know, obviously the crisps are sealed, but even throughout the year, you know, we've, this, it becomes much more difficult. We talk about these challenges post COVID challenges for event organizers, you know, having to, I would much prefer not to give somebody a sealed piece of cake or something, because obviously there's some plastic, there's a plastic wrapper there, isn't there? Which kind of goes against, you know, the work that we're trying to do, but yeah.
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah. But then this is the balance as well, isn't there? At the moment, you know, the most important thing, of course, is keeping people safe. And yeah, post COVID, we, you know, we really want to make sure that people are kept safe. So there won't be any buckets of sweets, unfortunately, this year. It's great that you've got that, you know, you're sponsor in Jones, because I assume they're local as well. Are they the Chris? Yeah, of course. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, Gary, the owner of the Jones Chris is based on Anglesey. So it's a great partnership, and one that we've had for a number of years.
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah. Um, and, and actually, I suppose I might be biased, but the, uh, if you run the race, you'll be given a packet of crisps. So I'll leave it to yourselves to, you know, to decide, you know, how good you think they are, but they're certainly my favorites. Yeah. So long vinegar crisps are always my snack of choice post run always. Um, tell us about the regional championships.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah, so this year the event is, it's the North Wales Road Half Marathon Championship. So which means that people who are affiliated with Welsh athletics, club runners and so on, will be running the North Wales Half Marathon Championship at the Jones-Angsley Half this year.
00:26:43
Speaker
Will they go off at the start at the same time? Yeah, it's a single race start. So the half goes first and then the 10k goes about 40 minutes afterwards. We also have some children's races, which we've always done. We do a one mile, we call it a dragon's dash, where the kids, again, they start at the main.
00:27:05
Speaker
start line on the bridge and they run over the bridge, down through the village, through the streets of the village and finish at the main finish line. That's fantastic for the little clothes, isn't it? Yeah, and it's brilliant. It's all closed roads and we get loads of kids, hundreds of kids come along and do it because it's, you know, it's only once a year that they close the Menai Suspension Bridge and this is the opportunity to come and run over it. Yeah.
00:27:29
Speaker
with no traffic.
Importance of Children's Races
00:27:31
Speaker
And kids racing is really important for us. We try as hard as we can to always have some kind of kids activity because that's how we started. I remember all them years ago, I spoke about it before about doing the Snowden race when I was a kid.
00:27:46
Speaker
And the memories, you know, those memories that, you know, they stay with you, don't they? Yeah. So we spoke about that back in September. So for anyone who hasn't listened to the September podcast with Tim, go back and have a listen, because it's all about how you and Kenny started the business and started doing events in your background. It's really interesting. Sorry, carry on. Yeah. It's super important that
00:28:12
Speaker
the opportunities that we have as children are still there now for the next generations and the generations to come. So you see this is lots and lots of parents bringing their kids, which is fantastic.
00:28:27
Speaker
It's these events which inspire kids to get involved and who knows where it might lead them. I mean, Oshan Perin, one of our local runners, is absolutely smashing it at the moment, isn't he? And he's, you know, 10 years ago, he'd have been running the Anglesey half, the one mile race at the Anglesey half marathon, and now he's European under 23 champion at whatever it is, 3,000 metres or 5,000 metres.
00:28:50
Speaker
absolutely smash it out there and it's fantastic to see and that's why it's so important that events like this do you know make an effort to put on some kind of children's activity as well. Yeah and for those children who don't necessarily
00:29:07
Speaker
you wouldn't see them put their hand up first in class for taking part. You actually come and do these things. That opportunity to take part in an organized event where you start and you actually take part, you know, perhaps they don't get in the football team or the rugby team or the hockey team, but they actually come to an event like that where they're cheers along. The kind of confidence boost that that can do for the, you know, for those children as well is really, really important. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's brilliant to see and, you know,
00:29:36
Speaker
That's one of the highlights for me every year is seeing all the kids running in over the finish line. It's brilliant.
00:29:44
Speaker
You mentioned the 40-minute gap between the two events starting.
Logistics and Safety in Event Planning
00:29:51
Speaker
So for those of our listeners who haven't been involved in organizing a closed road race like this, can you describe, and I know we could go on for ages about this, but just describe some of the logistics of organizing a road race like this because the panning doesn't happen before, does it?
00:30:08
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's tough. It's tough. You know, we are very lucky always in high that we've got an amazing event planning team. So I can't actually take the credit for that. You know, this year's race director is a girl called Tara who works for us who's doing a brilliant, brilliant job. She's supported by Fran and they've been working for 12 months to organize this event. We always give it a full 12 month
00:30:33
Speaker
period from you know from start of event organizing to delivering the event and there's so much to consider you know not only things like your road closures and all the sort of legalities around road closures but typically for an event organizer we would you know attend what's called the safety advisory group yeah where the local authority brings together
00:30:58
Speaker
all of the interested parties, so it will include your emergency services in different departments within the local authority, like sort of highways, tourism, health and safety, that kind of stuff. And then those people all come together and basically we would present an event plan to them.
00:31:15
Speaker
And the way it works is they would feedback and actually what we prefer is that they try to pick holes in our plan so that we can cover any eventuality that might happen on the day. What you can't do with event planning is leave anything to chance.
00:31:33
Speaker
You've got to try and cover every eventuality. So that's sort of the planning process through the local authorities and the Landos and so on. But we also, with any closed road event, you've got to do a full consultation with all the local residents, the local communities, the businesses. It's a huge commitment because we actually make the effort at the Anxley half, for example, to hand deliver letters to all of the residents along the route.
00:32:00
Speaker
And there's literally thousands of them. So it's a huge commitment that we make as the event organizer. But it's also very important because we know that if we want to deliver this event year after year, the most important people or equally as important as the runners are the local residents. Exactly. So we do try to minimize disruption. And it's not easy on a closed road event because
00:32:30
Speaker
local businesses and so on need to be considered in that. But we think that we do a good job. We certainly put a lot of time and effort into doing that. And in fact, many businesses
00:32:50
Speaker
will benefit hugely from these events being delivered because things that, you know, anybody that's involved in tourism, hospitality and so on, you know, they would enjoy a good weekend when an event takes place because we bring in thousands of people who wouldn't normally be here, especially, you know, at a time of the year, it's early March, which is traditionally a very quiet time. Yes. It's a welcome boost for a lot of businesses.
00:33:16
Speaker
And then it's lovely when you hear them saying, you know, they've been back as well because they came because of, you know, they can take part of the event and find some gems and actually came back again, which is lovely.
00:33:30
Speaker
Yeah. Just to point on those letters, all sorts of things come up from that. So we also do that for Shrewsbury. And it really, like you say, the residents are really important, but you'll get all sorts of inquiries from that, won't you? Like, oh, I've got to be, I've got to beat the airport and I've got to leave. Well, the race and
00:33:50
Speaker
We've had things like, you know, sort of, you know, weddings taking place in hotels. There's a hotel, the road closure that we implement for the Yangtze half and 10K is, there's a hotel called Chateau Rianvo, which is right in the middle of our road closure.
00:34:06
Speaker
And they've had weddings taking place, so guests wanting to arrive or to leave. So we have to try and work out the logistics of how we can make that happen, working that around the runners and the race and so on. So yeah, there's all sorts of things and always an interesting challenge.
00:34:27
Speaker
The last time, I think it's 2019 race, the last one that we did before COVID. That was 2020, I see. We ran it in 2020. There was a huge storm. It was a huge storm the night before the race, a Saturday night. And we actually weren't able to use Menai Bridge because they had to close Britannia Bridge.
00:34:46
Speaker
which is the neighbouring bridge. When we closed Mena Bridge normally, all the traffic is diverted onto the Britannia Bridge, which is the bigger of the two bridges. But Britannia Bridge was closed because of the wind, which meant that Mena Bridge had to be kept open. We do have contingencies in place for closing Mena Bridge, so the race started on the high street, so that was okay.
00:35:07
Speaker
But, um, but the problem we had was there was a tree that was blown down, um, on halfway, you know, on that road down between Menno Bridge and Bumaris. Yeah. There was a huge tree across the road. So we also had to reroute, um, uh, along some, some different back roads. Uh, and this was all done in this sort of three or four hour period before the race start. Yeah. You can imagine what a headache, you know, that was, you know, bear in mind, we had 3000 runners on the best part of 3000 runners sort of.
00:35:35
Speaker
arriving in a few hours. But we did it, we pulled it off and that was because of the amount of planning and preparation that was in place in order to cover all those eventualities that can be thrown at you at the last minute. Talking about the last minute, describe what your event week looks like again for those who haven't been involved.
00:36:04
Speaker
Well, we arrive on site on the Friday for the Anglesey half. That's actually down there in Meno Bridge. Anglesey half is actually probably for us, one of the easier events for us to deliver, believe it or not. I mean, triathlon events, there's so much more that goes in.
00:36:22
Speaker
into putting on a triathlon because we have to build a great big event village. But the event week is a long week. Unfortunately, for all our staff, they know that well enough now because the event week. But during that Friday, Saturday, before the event takes place, you've got to do all your course marking, you've got to deliver all your feed stations,
00:36:45
Speaker
We've got to build our event village, which is in this, we take over a car park in the centre of Mena Bridge. We can't build our start line until the morning of the race because it's on the bridge itself, but we can build the event village down in Mena Bridge. You've got to fill all your, because we don't do any single use plastics, we've got all your water containers that, you know,
00:37:09
Speaker
to fill and deliver out to feed stations. There's countless jobs that have to be done in that last week. And that, of course, doesn't include the... We really try to maintain a good response to our customers, a good response time to our customers. So in the week before an event, we will get
00:37:35
Speaker
hundreds and hundreds of inquiries from runners either by phone or by email and over social media as well. So just responding to those inquiries is a huge job in itself. So yeah, it's a busy time. And of course, the race doesn't end when the last runner goes home. Then we've got to pack it all down and we've got to transport all the equipment back to our warehouse and then unpack it all. If it's been raining, then everything's soaking wet.
00:38:03
Speaker
Yeah. So we've got to try and dry it all out. It's great fun because we're a team and we love working together.
Post-event Celebration and Reflection
00:38:13
Speaker
So it can be fun, but it's also, it's hard work. The long days, you don't get a lot of sleep, but the reward is seeing lots and lots of happy runners and having a great time on the race day. Do you have a
00:38:29
Speaker
Do you have a post-race glass of wine when you finally get home or are you too tired and you pass out? No, I think there's probably always going to be a little bit of a, you know, sort of, yeah, little glass of wine to celebrate a successful event. Yeah, but it doesn't take more than probably one or two glasses, I think, after an event weekend. You're ready to go ahead. Yeah, to see you off. Yeah, that's it.
00:38:56
Speaker
Brilliant. Tim, thanks for coming on and chatting again.
Episode Conclusion and Event Registration
00:39:02
Speaker
Everybody have a look at angle C, 10K in half marathon, March the 6th. Remind us of your web address and social channels please. You'll find all the information on alwaysaimhievents.com. If you're going to alwaysaimhievents.com, then you can click through to
00:39:18
Speaker
to all the information about the Jones Angsiaf Marathon 10K. And we're also on social media on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, if you search always in my events or AAH events, you'll find us on social and all the information we keep that updated pretty regularly with everything that's going on.
00:39:37
Speaker
The event, we're still taking entries for this year's event. We're unlikely to, because we don't anticipate filling up this year, the event entries will probably stay up until sometime during the week before the race. So if anybody's not entered, but is interested in, yeah, then there's places available so you can sign up right now.
00:39:59
Speaker
Brilliant. Tim, thanks ever so much. Like I said earlier, I'm going to pop into the show notes our earlier introduction. It's really a chat from September, so if anyone hasn't listened to that, do have a listen to that as well. It's really interesting to hear Tim and Kenny, their background, and it couldn't be anyone better really to be putting events on in North Wales. Tim, thanks ever so much, and best of luck with your event.
00:40:48
Speaker
Thanks very much.